


Kirkwall's Own

by AntipodeanPixie



Series: Dissonant Verses [2]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: As well as other extras, F/M, Gen, canon events
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-23
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-03-14 17:41:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3419714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AntipodeanPixie/pseuds/AntipodeanPixie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ah yes, Kirkwall. Slavers, apostates falling out of the woodwork, The Hanged Man, and more dysfunctional adoptive family than you can shake a stick at.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Demands of the Qun

**Author's Note:**

> Contains canon typical violence, not necessarily in this chapter, but throughout the series. The posting will not be linear, and will include reactions to ingame events and extrapolation beyond that.

Standing on the open common, surrounding by gaggling spectators, the Knight Commander and First Enchanter, and the unfortunate Viscount's head, Fenris had never been so glad to hear Isabela's ribald tones as she had swaggered in with the key to solving this whole Maker Blighted mess. Hawke sighed in relief, taking a moment to close her bright blue eyes. 

"The relic is reclaimed. I am now free to return to Par Vollen, with the thief." the Arishok intoned, handing the tome off to a Qunari who bowed deeply over the relic and shuffled away with it in deep reverence. 

"Wait, what?" Isabela squeaked, eyes flickering in alarm. Hawke looked up (and up and up) at the massive giant, his horns only adding to his impressive aura. Fenris could see her black curls falling over her back with how far her head tipped. She could hear the rest starting up and held one hand up quick and firm, the noise behind her subsiding. 

"She stole the Tome of Koslun. She must return with us."

"You have the tome. You may not have Isabela." she stated firmly, back straightening as she stared the Arishok down calmly. Varric shuffled Isabela out of the way, Aveline moving into guard position. Hawke did not move. Fenris had a feeling he knew what was coming next and the Arishok did not disappoint his expectations. 

"Then you leave me no choice. I challenge you Hawke. You and I will battle to the death, with her as the prize." The Arishok intoned. Just as Hawke was going to nod, Isabela cut in, hand grabbing Hawke's arm hard to shut the smaller woman up. A gleam of sweat shone on her skin, fear in her spine. She knew as well as Fenris what a Qunari in a duel looked like, never mind an Arishok.

"No! If you're going to duel anyone, duel me."

"You are not basilt-an. You are not worthy." the Arishok dismissed, and Fenris gritted his teeth against the slight to Isabela. She damn well was worthy. Perhaps not of some things, but worth a great deal of others and to the Void if they were going to give her up to this. Hawke took Isabela's hand off her shoulder and squeezed it, giving the other woman a reassuring smile. Then she turned to look the Arishok directly in his pale grey eyes. 

"I accept your challenge." she spoke in steel tones, fingers white gripped on her staff. Fenris felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. 

As they faced off, the audience drawing back, Fenris' teeth ached with how he clenched them against the urge to call out for Hawke. _Don't, this is not necessary, we can take them together._ But Hawke was capable. He'd seen time and again what she could do. She cut down thugs and slavers with no thought, didn't twitch a hair at spiders or Merrill's bloodmagic or the Abomination's very existence. She proved tough enough to handle their disparate group of companions -- _friends_ , a traitorous voice whispered, _your friends_ \-- with grace and calm. And now... she looked so small. She was shorter than him, their one night had made that clear, and she barely came up to the Arishok's armpit. He had height, reach, strength on her. She was one mage, usually at the back of their cohort in deference to the fact that she only wore cloth with leather parts. That he wanted to call for her... _I should not have left her that night. I should have returned to her before now._


	2. Demands Denied

He was fast. Damn fast. Hawke ducked quickly, and she could see the smallest smile on the Arishok's face. Damn. He was testing her reaction time, his swings coming quicker and quicker as she dodged, parried, ducked. She needed to get out from under his reach, she wouldn't be suited for close combat against something this powerful in the arm.

She ducked, dived, rolled smoothly to her feet. Behind her somewhere off to the side she could hear a faint whoop. Isabela, proud her pupil had managed that maneuver so well. When the Arishok next brought one of his blades down towards her, she knew his moves better. They inevitably came in pairs, and she fluidly slid around the sword, her sovnya coming up to block his axe handle while she ducked under his arm. A move that would have been pointless with a normal staff, but the blade on hers sliced deep under the Arishok's arm.

First blood to the apostate.

Hawke spun to face him, settling her feet to watch him closely for reactions. He snorted like a real ox, breath a puff of smoke in the cold air. He didn't seem to register the injury much. Blood dripped down his side, she'd felt the blade rip deep into his ribs. He was slower bringing the axe up when he readied for another attack. Good. If she could keep this up, cut at his arms, his sides, while remaining out of reach herself, she stood a good chance of running him down. She was grateful for all the running up and down stairs over the past months to keep her fit and agile. As he swung, she shot a small bit of magic under his boot right when his weight shifted. Suddenly slipping on the ice, he continued to swing at her even as he went down. Not expecting him to press the attack while falling, she was too slow.

Fire of axe cut up her calf, the sharding pain of what was likely a fracture. She stooped to check, limping back. He'd cut right through her boot, though the heavy leather had at least kept her from being completely crippled. She'd be slower now, a critical mistake. She ran her fingers through the blood, looked up at the Qunari who was climbing to his feet, painted with Vitaar.

She drew her two fingers across the bridge of her nose and over her cheek. Warpaint of her own blood. Let them come. 

"What is she doing?" Fenris muttered, hand clenching and relaxing at his side. He daren't look down at the bright red favour about his wrist.

"She's doing what she can, Broody." Varric responded lowly. "You think it's gonna look good if she explodes him in front of everyone? She knows this is just as much show as it's serious. A serious show, if you will."

"So she will risk her own death for what? To avoid scaring those who should rightfully fear her?"

"To avoid scaring those who would fear kids that light candles and hedgewitches selling potions," Varric replied, hand carressing Bianca in a nervous tic. His hand spazmed and Fenris swallowed -hard- when Hawke was clipped by the axe.

"She's not faster than him anymore!" Merrill trilled in distress. "Oh can't we help her?"

" **No.** " Fenris snapped, voice harsh. "If we intervene then the duel is forfeit and Kirkwall falls."

It continued, Hawke doing all she could to keep out of range, whittling the Qunari down. Despite being injured herself, she had done an admirable job at sniping the Qunari with small bits of magic and quick jabs. Hawke managed to catch his axe handle on her ironwood staff, holding tight as his sword came around. She focused. With a roar the Qunari dropped the metal as it blistered through the grips, shaking his hand through the stench of burnt skin. Where it hit the ground, the sword deformed like it was made of wet clay, still glowing dim with heat. But she was slowing, lagging just enough for an untrained eye to see it. When he advanced on her next, Hawke went to shift sideways...

and stumbled, her heel skidding in her own blood and her leg weakening. In that moment, she only managed a rudimentary barrier before the Qunari slammed through it, through her robe, into her side, flinging her across the cobbles. Merrill buried her face in the neck of Hawke's hound, unable to watch. Hawke tumbled to a stop, bleeding heavily through her robes ( _Why did she wear the blue ones today of all days, when they would show it up so well_ ) and her leg useless as her staff lay out of reach. Placing a hand to her side, only a smidge of magic remained, barely stemming the bleeding. Sensing the kill, the Qunari strode to stand over her as she lay panting, staring up at him with imperious blue eyes. His own grey ones were implacable as he lifted his axe up and back over his head to come down on her. She closed her eyes, head tipping back for a moment as if in surrender.

 **No!** howled something primitive in Fenris' chest. **NO you cannot kill her, mage or not she is MINE. Neither you, nor the Gallows, nor the Maker himself can have her!**

He wanted to move. Couldn't move. Frozen in place. A sudden bloom of a shield erupted under Hawke, propelling her up and against the Qunari's unguarded chest. Both her palms slapped into him between his armour straps. The Arishok's arm came up reflexively to block, crushing along her back as he was too slow. For a heartbeat it looked like a twisted lover's embrace, something from a fresco of triumph. Then the air split asunder with an almighty crack, the rumble of thunder as a number of people screamed. Fenris only just managed to close his eyes as the lightning flared and he could smell smoking meat. Squinting in the suddenly dark world, he heard somebody cry "The Arishok is dead!" His feet were moving before he knew it, racing the Mabari to his mistress, _their mistress, if he were honest with himself_.


	3. Carpe Animam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I'm not ready to go. Don't let me go._
> 
> _A soft presence. Strong. Coiling around her, holding her in the currents, tethering her._
> 
> _I have you. I will not let you go before they can bring you home._

"Hawke!" he growled, crouching by her on the unforgiving cobbles, little rivers of her blood around the raised stones. Nearby the Arishok was a smoking mess as the Qunari about them began to solemnly leave, bearing their prize and their news back to Par Vollen. The city was saved, and while the Viscount's seat now sat empty, the common people had a reprieve. None of that mattered right now. Not when Hawke's fingers twitched, her eyes rolled softly back in her head. "Hawke, can you hear me?" 

There was a silent patter of unshod feet next to him and Merrill knelt at Hawke's head, cradling it in her slim hands. Fenris' lips drew back over his teeth instinctively at the bloodmage touching Hawke while she was vulnerable. Then Hawke stopped moving entirely, claiming his entire attention.

"Her heart just stopped!" Merrill whispered, wide eyes almost circles with fear. "She hasn't got a pulse!"

"Heal her!" Fenris growled, his hand lighting up. 

"I c-can't, I never learned how to, not properly," Merrill sobbed, hands covering her mouth. A warm brown hand clasped on her shoulder. Fenris felt an irrational moment of hatred. All her fault, all Isabela for taking the tome and running with it, leading the Qunari here, to Hawke, making Hawke stand and fight alone for her useless sake. Later, he would feel guilt at his vitriol.

"Deep breaths kitten."

"HEAL HER" Fenris snarled, desperate for somebody other than him to -do- something before shoving his hand into Hawke's chest. It was alien. Not that he had never put his hand into somebody's ribcage before, but that he was doing it with the single minded intention of seizing her life and holding it here rather than tearing it away. Cupping the organ in his hand, he squeezed his fingers towards his palm as if beckoning her back to the living. One-two, and a pause. Merrill was reaching for her dagger when Isabela intercepted her, crouching down and wrapping her arms around the distraught Dalish to keep her from doing anything reckless.

"Not here and now, kitten. We've got other ways."

_One-two._ He could feel Hawke's broken ribs against his forearm. With the blow of the axe and her harsh fall, her rib cage had been shattered. _One-two._ Pause. _One-two._ Pause. Somebody somewhere nearby had started the Chant, fervent prayer. He could feel people around them, chanced a moment to glance up. He could see Aveline's copper hair and Varric's broad back as they positioned themselves up to guard, the hound sitting at her mistress's feet and growling at all who looked too long. They were safe. _One-two._

"She's not breathing." Merrill moaned.

"Then you must breath for her, child." The senior enchanter, Orsino, knelt beside them. Aveline shuffled sideways to grant him room. "Quickly now. Tip her chin up, free the airways. Pinch her nose closed, seal your mouth over hers. Good, deep breaths, in through your nose and out into her." Merrill nearly fell sideways, bending over Hawke and taking a deep breath. Slender fingers pinched Hawke's nose and tipped her chin up, and then Merrill was covering her mouth and blowing air in, breathing for Hawke whose lungs had faltered with her heart.

Fenris couldn't find it in him to protest. Hawke needed this and he would give her all she needed, if only those damnable blue eyes would open and laugh at him. He could feel her lungs inflate with Merrill's borrowed breath before deflating again against his knuckles. In, out. _One-two._ Pause. _One-two._ Pause. _One-_ it beat before his hand could pump and he stumbled his rhythm for a moment, before matching it to the first weak, now strengthening heartbeat.

"Her heartbeat's returned." Fenris managed. Suddenly Merrill sat back as Hawke began to cough and Fenris removed his hand from her chest. Not a speck of blood on his hand but plenty of it between his toes. 

"Well done, you've done the first part," Orsino praised and leaned in, laying glowing hands on Hawke's mangled chest and soaking healing magics into her. Where Hawke's frame had tensed again with the return to life, it relaxed at the fleeing of pain and the repairing of flesh. "If you had not been so swift with her heart, we may not have caught her." 

Blue eyes cracked open vaguely, barely seen before Hawke closed them again. A weak hand flailed a bit and Merrill caught it, clutching tight with two hands. Fenris stared intently at Hawke's face. _She lived she lived was she alright she lived._

"We're taking her home," he declared, voice hard. He looked up at Orsino and the collecting crowd as if daring anyone to argue. "She has suffered enough for your sakes today." A small cracked murmur left her lips and he ducked low to listen, close enough to kiss even as his scowl threatened to bring the storm season early.

"... you be there?" she said weakly.

"I would be nowhere else," he promised, low and heartfelt and surprised himself at how the words resonated past his chest, somewhere in the region of his soul.

Fenris couldn't carry her. She was loose, floppy and boneless, and he was covered in spikes. Merrill was too slender, Varric too short. The bloody dog was out of the question. Isabela crouched, and with surprising grace lifted Hawke over her hip and shoulder like an exhausted toddler. He forgot just how strong the Rivaini was sometimes.

"Alright folks, show's over," Varric said, muscling in to take point after having a quiet word with a young dwarf who'd taken off. "Time to break it up. Go put out some fires and see to the dead."


	4. Hearts Ease.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ah yes that quest. Feeels.

Bodhan let him in, the dwarf's face suspiciously crinkled about the mouth and eyes, nose a bit red. Fenris tipped his head to him in silent greeting, glancing about the place. There was no sign of his son or Orana, nor of Hawke and her dog. 

"Greetings, Messere. I'm afraid things are a bit- quiet around at the moment. Miss H- Mistress Hawke is upstairs, in her rooms." Bodahn murmured. It seemed even his perpetual good cheer had taken a battering with the unexpected events leading to his employer's demise. Fenris shifted uneasily at the palpable grief that hung over the estate, even as he sketched another quick nod to Bodahn and padded up the stairway to the upper stories. His feet made no sound as he reached Hawke's room and then hesitated. Did he knock? Was that appropriate? Tem usually had no problem with any of them barging in at all hours, but that had been when her mother was alive. He himself did not remember his own mother well enough to judge what kind of emotion that would lead to. His lip curled in a silent snarl at himself. What kind of coward was he? He pushed the door open quietly.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tem had mostly stopped crying, for the time being. She lay curled up on her side, watching the flames in her fire place, arms curled tight around her hound. Aubrey whined a little, and Tem rubbed her face around the warhound's scruff. "Looks like you're all I have left," she muttered, only to have Aubrey chuff as her door clicked shut. She'd not even heard it open, which meant maybe three people. Either Isabela, Varric, or Fenris. Isabela was unlikely, and she'd already sobbed all over Varric's shoulder. Fenris then, and his voice confirmed it as he spoke.

"You have more than you think," Fenris offered, and shifted uncomfortably, glad it was only the Mabari watching him. Tem rolled to sit upright, Aubrey shifting to lean against her. Tem looked up at Fenris, eyes heartbreakingly unsure and so unlike her. He took an unsure step towards her, and she smiled at him. A small, weak, watery thing, she could feel how frail it was with the way the corners of her mouth twitched awfully. At that, he seemed to grow bolder and came to sit on the edge of the bed with her, his thigh just shy of her knee where she had tucked herself into a cross legged position. She kept one arm around her hound, taking comfort in the warm mass as she stared into the fire, no idea if he was still looking at her.

"I cannot imagine what it must be like to lose your family." That kicked her a little in the chest as for a selfish second, she wished she shared that. Had never known or loved her mother so that Leandra's absence wouldn't HURT so much. And then she felt a flare of guilt as she reminded herself. The love was worth the loss. "Anything I could say would be insufficient. I'm sorry." Sorry. She'd heard that word so much today, but it had a different edge from Fenris. Not condolences. An apology, that he couldn't make it hurt less. She nibbled her lip. Pushed her hair back off her face so that she could actually see him, and he her. 

"I... words." her voice faltered, and Fenris turned his head slightly to look at her. He waited patiently as she mastered herself, hands trembling softly. "Words never worked well on me. I. I used to- listen. To M-mum's heartbeat. Or Bethy's. Nightmares, if we woke up, when we were too big to slide in with Dad and too small to just go back to sleep, we'd tuck our heads to each other's chests. Listen to the heartbeat. Because." she stopped, feeling her throat clog and reached for the pile of clean hankies on her bed side table, a pile of soggy ones on the floor to match it. She blew her nose again, dimly aware that there wouldn't be handkerchiefs enough in this house with the way everyone but Sandal kept going on. 

"Hawke," came the low tone and she felt a little tug at her heart strings again and had to stare up at the ceiling. _Hawke._ Always Hawke. With most of her family dead, Carver in the Gallows and Aubrey mute, that would be all anyone would call her now. There was nobody left to call her Tem. She heard Fenris shuffling but ignored it. He was always fidgeting. But just having him there, another warm and living presence in her room, helped a little. Even if he could barely stand to touch her, after spending one night with her. 

And here she was thinking about her wreck of a love life when her mother was DEAD and they'd only burned her body that afternoon, Carver's hand resting on hers on Aubrey's scruff, the pair of them silent and stiff with agony and the phantom weight of Carver's blame. She wanted to laugh at herself and vomit at the same time while Aubrey whined at her and Fenris just sat there on her coverlet like a great lump not that she even made any of this easy on him-

A hand curled around the back of her head and guided her head down, and she found her cheek pressed against cool leather that warmed quickly between her and the skin behind it. For a moment she froze, unsure what to do as Fenris' other hand came up, also miraculously free of his gauntlets. Strong elegant fingers carded through her hair, focusing on her scalp as the lyrium in his fingertips fizzed against her skull. 

"You are not alone," he murmured roughly. 

_"You're never alone, sweetpea," Dad said, strong brown fingers running through her head of curls that matched his own, his voice sleepy in the warm dark while Mum slept. She burrowed her head into his chest and listened to the steady thump under her ear. "Listen to my heartbeat, luv. I'm right here."_

_Tired and about to fall off the wagon seat, Tem peered up at her mother. "Mum?"_

_"mm?"_

_"I'm sorry. I'm sorry we have to move again, and it's all my fault f-for"_

_"Hush, Tem. It's alright." She pressed her daughter's head to her breast, and Tem rested her cheek on the soft swells, curls brushing up against the collar her mother always wore. She could hear her mother's heart beat, calm and firm as her arms that held Tem on her lap so that she could sleep._

_"Tem?" Came the small whisper, thin and reedy from the twin's bed. Tem mmphed and lifted up the covers, and a moment later there was a hot little body squiggling in under the covers as Bethy curled up against her sister, smooshing her ear against Tem's chest and listening for her heart. "S'ok Bethy. Long as you can hear that, you're not alone," she repeated the words her father had told her years ago, and Bethy settled._

With a dry sob she brought her arms up to wrap around Fenris' waist, pressing tightly against him as she listened for his heart beat. There. Muted by the leather, but just discernible beneath the crackle of the fire and the rasp of her own breathing. Fenris curled further around her, settling into an easy position aided by Aubrey shuffling around the bed to lean against his back, a solid bolster for him to lean against as he cradled Tem to his chest. This was... acceptable, for this evening. She needed this, and for once it seemed to be something he could provide.


End file.
